The North Korean Purge That Didn’t Happen

A handout picture taken by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on Dec. 29, 2013, shows the Korean People’s Army Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-Hae.

Call it a helpful reminder that much of what you hear about North Korea is probably not true.

A senior North Korean military official close to dictator Kim Jong Un reemerged in state media on Friday after disappearing from public view for a few weeks. Speculation had been building that Choe Ryong Hae might have been purged after a report from a radio station operated by North Korean defectors that Mr. Choe was arrested on Feb. 21.

The report said Mr. Choe had fallen short in his duties to keep troops sufficiently devoted to Mr. Kim, among other failings.

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Mr. Choe reappeared on Friday, where he was shown on state television with Mr. Kim attending an air force drill. The footage showed Mr. Choe appeared to have a limp.

A purge of Mr. Choe would have been particularly dramatic because he is viewed as one of Mr. Kim’s closest aides and was one of the main beneficiaries of the power shuffle in the wake of the execution of Jang Song Thaek, Mr. Kim’s uncle, late last year. Mr. Choe is the head of the political bureau of the military and was sent as an envoy to China in June last year, where he met Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Another high level purge could have added to speculation of instability at the top of the North Korean regime. Instead, the return of Mr. Choe serves as a reminder of the impenetrability of the inner workings of the North Korean elite.

Rumors about developments in the regime are relatively common in South Korean media but almost always impossible to confirm. Many appear to originate from South Korea’s intelligence agency, which has a patchy record in reporting developments in North Korea.

Its stock went up last year when it correctly reported the purge of Mr. Jang before North Korea’s confirmation.

One of the most eye-catching errors in North Korea reportage was a front page story in South Korea’s largest circulation daily in 1986 of the assassination of then-dictator Kim Il Sung. That Mr. Kim died of natural causes in 1994.